LifeTimeline

On living artfully and intentionally as embodied by Dr. Bruce Kramer

    • DEC 06

      Bruce is diagnosed with ALS

    2010
    • MAR

      The Dis Ease Diary is started

    • JUN

      Bruce and Cathy's first interview

    2011
    • MAR 23

      Bruce dies

    2015
    • MAR 25

      Moving the work forward!

    2016
  • Bruce is diagnosed with ALS

    By Deborah DeMeester
  • The Dis Ease Diary is started

    Bruce begins to blog about his experiences with ALS. He makes the decision to live publicly with his disease and dis ease and narrates his transformation from living as a temporarily able bodied person (TAB) through diagnosis to an understanding of the human condition rooted in dis ease. Through tears and laughter, Bruce's quick wit, compassion, artful creativity, keen intelligence and candor began to draw a wider audience to his blog. It attracted the attention of Cathy Wurzer, Host of Morning Edition on Minnesota Public Radio, who reached out to interview Bruce for her show.

    "I’ve decided to try blogging. It seems to me that it might be a good way for all of us to stay in touch and in many cases, to meet each other. Some of you will know me from a musical past or present while others will know me from an international past. Still others will know me from a present that is so grounded in Minneapolis, MN, the University of St. Thomas and 15 years of Stateside experiences that have become inexorably intertwined with one another. Anyway, what I am hoping is that as you log into this blog and read (and hopefully leave a comment or two for me or others to see), you will also begin to meet each other. My friends and family are incredible, raucous, messy and just wonderful human beings! It is really time for you all to meet.

    What I am hoping is that this can become a dialogue. I’ve called it the Dis Ease Diary. While I think that my diagnosis of ALS really focuses me on how we do health, sickness, ease and dis ease in this country (and really, the Western world in general), I also think it is bigger than just a commentary on health. As we consider those things that seem at the time to be interruptions to our lives (dissing the ease so to speak), many will have nothing to do with ALS. Instead, I see possibilities of this blog helping to connect some of the dots of what it might mean to be human in the early 21st Century. Or we might just get in a few laughs and cries.

    So take this in a lot of ways. We can keep up with each other, we can talk about life, the Cubs or fashion, or maybe we can see if there is a little room for human consideration of being human. If you don’t want to share your comment with the D E Diary, then feel free to email me. The idea here is that, even as the motor neurons come unconnected, the love, life, light and joy of all of us, even in the darkest times, becomes unified. And I admit this is very selfish, for I find that in the notes, letters, cards, and just chance meetings, since my diagnosis, I am strengthened and energized for the days ahead. That is what love can do for us.

    Yours in ALS,

    Bruce (March 2, 2011)
    By Deborah DeMeester
  • Bruce and Cathy's first interview

    "That interview was more than an hour long in the MPR studios. Extraordinary in its honesty. I'll never forget it." -- Cathy Wurzer
    By Deborah DeMeester
    Cathy Wurzer
    That interview was more than an hour long in the MPR studios. Extraordinary in its honesty. I'll never forget it. This is a photo of Bruce and his beloved Good Samaritan Methodist Church Choir. In order to give listeners a sense of Bruce, we went to see Bruce and choir rehearse for this performance.
  • Bruce dies

    Bruce's obituary from the University of St. Thomas: http://www.stthomas.edu/news/bruce-kram/.../sor-dies-of-als/

    Cathy Wurzer's reflections upon Bruce's death: http://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/03/23/bruce-kramer
    By Deborah DeMeester
  • 2

    Moving the work forward!

    Minneapolis, Minnesota
    March 25, 2016 marked the one year anniversary of the launch of "We Know How This Ends: Living while Dying" and in one year, family and friends of Bruce worked through our feelings of grief and loss by talking to groups around Minnesota.

    We were thrilled and humbled to have been nominated and were a finalist for a 2015 Minnesota Book Award in Memoir.

    In April, we fulfilled a request by Bruce to hold a special book event at his church, The Good Samaritan United Methodist Church in Edina, Minnesota. This event, which included music, poetry, selections from his book, and public discussion, was a model for an exciting new way to move Bruce's work forward! Details to come!
    By Deborah DeMeester
    Cathy Wurzer
    Welcome friends to this Bruce Kramer Book Club portal! Please navigate around this site and ponder the questions as Bruce would ask you to do. I'll dip in and out and add my comments and we'll get a conversation started!!!